Al's Opinions

Some of my Democratic friends have been dedicated, single-minded supporters of Hillary R. Clinton. Others were equally dedicated to Barack H. Obama. When it turned out that Mrs. Clinton was not going to get the nomination, some of these friends swore that since their candidate didn't win the nomination, they were not going to vote for the winner. To one faction or another, it seemed vital that the Democratic candidate (and probable successor to George W. Bush) be a woman or be a person of African ancestry.

I should clarify that last phrase by inserting the word "recent." Partisans who favor Obama because of his ancestry really mean recent African ancestry. In my case, my ancestors came from Sweden, England, Ireland, Scotland, and Holland. I can claim to be "white" or "caucasian" on a census report. In truth, my ancestors, along with the ancestors of every human alive today, came from Africa. I believe mine came out of Africa at least 60,000 years ago. Africa was the birthplace of the human species. Until about 100,000 years ago, there were no humans anywhere on this planet except in Africa.

It is also pertinent to point out that, although I am not a woman, many of my ancestors were women. Thus, I am descended from women and from (ancient) Africans. I see no reason that I should prefer that the next president be a woman or a (recent) African. Also, I see no reason that I should prefer that the next president not be a woman or a (recent) African. The enthusiasm for Hillary or Barack is pure hype.

All of this enthusiasm for the personal qualities of the candidates causes the public to forget some very important issues in the campaign. Supporters of John McCain boast of his maverick status, his straight talk, and of being a different kind of Republican from George Bush. Supporters of Barack Obama boast of his freshness, his determination to encourage a different kind of political discourse, and his rise to prominence from a very humble beginning. Supporters of Hillary Rodham Clinton hail her toughness and her ability to play the political game in Washington and in particular her ability to stand up to the men who make up most of the Senate. Lost in this hyperbole are such issues as the political make-up of the Supreme Court, the stranglehold that insurance companies have on our inefficient health-care system, our policy of trying to use our wonderful military system to form an American empire (and making jackasses of ourselves in the process), and the growing divide between the very rich and the rest of us, to name a few. We should put aside the personalities and other characteristics of the candidates and try to figure out what each one would do regarding the issues I've just mentioned. If McCain and Obama go about conducting town hall meetings, we should be in the meetings with questions regarding these and other issues.

After all, McCain and Obama are nice men and Mrs. Clinton is a nice woman. Let's find out what they'd do or try to do as President.

Labels: Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, importance of issues over personalities, John McCain

It looks likely that the Democratic ticket will be Obama and Clinton. Since she can't now get the Presidential nomination, Mrs. Clinton will fight as hard as ever for second place. Someone today pointed out the Kennedy-Johnson ticket in 1960. Something like that may be needed this year to keep disgruntled Clinton supporters with the ticket and discourage them from staying at home on election day or voting for John McCain.

I ask myself, does it matter to me? No. Since there are no longer any Republicans like Earl Warren or Wayne Morse or even Everett Dirksen in position to achieve the Republican nomination, I will never, never, ever vote for a Republican for President. If the Democrats manage to choose someone that I really can't stand, I will vote for the Green, Peace and Freedom, or Libertarian candidate.

Do I have a preference? Yes; my first choice was John Edwards. Barack Obama is a second or third choice. I think he will be a good President. At least, he will be much, much, much better than George W. Bush.

Do I like Mrs. Clinton? No. I don't strongly dislike her. I would vote for her and campaign for her if she had won the nomination. However, there's something about her that I don't like. She rubs me the wrong way. Many politicians of both parties have rubbed me the wrong way.

Do I dislike her because she is a woman and I don't think a woman should be president? I don't think so. However, what I dislike about her is her abrasiveness. Perhaps she learned long ago that, as a woman, she has to be abrasive and assertive to have other people in politics, mostly men, treat her as an equal and take her seriously. In that case, the characteristic that I don't like is, or may be, her response to being a woman.

Does it bother me that if she becomes the Vice President her husband Bill will have an important influence on government policy? Not at all. I think Bill Clinton was one of the best Presidents in my lifetime and certainly the smartest and best educated. He would be a welcome influence in an Obama administration. In fact, I would like to have Obama appoint him to an important cabinet position, such as Secretary of State.

There are, of course, voters who are enthusiastic about Barack Obama but who can't stand Hillary Clinton. These voters might not vote for an Obama-Clinton ticket and might even vote for McCain. Senator Obama has to weigh the possible loss of these voters against the possible loss of enthusiastic Clinton supporters in deciding whether to offer the Vice Presidency to Senator Clinton. I hope he makes a good decision. I don't want four more years of ultra-conservative appointments to the Supreme Court.

Labels: Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Kennedy-Johnson ticket, Prejudice against women, Vice-Presidency

California, along with several other "large" States, moved its presidential primary election up from the first Tuesday in June to a Tuesday in February. The excuse was that voters in California were tired of voting in a presidential primary late in the season when one candidate had already accumulated enough delegates to win the nomination at the convention. We Californians are still frustrated that our big State didn't have a decisive effect on choosing the nominee of the Democratic Party. Now we are wishing that we hadn't gone to the trouble of holding the presidential primary in February. If we had not yet voted, our State could be the one to decide the nominee.

Aside from that, we are left to watch the maneuverings of the two candidates, Clinton and Obama. Clinton seems to be better at back-room gutter-level politics than Obama. Take the case of Michigan. Michigan broke the rules set by the Democratic National Committee by voting before February 5. Clinton and Obama at the time agreed to the rule. Obama honorably did not enter his name in the balloting that did take place. Clinton had her name on the ballot. Michigan voters were given the choice of "Clinton" or "Other." Of course "Other" could have been any of several candidates: Obama, Kucinich, Edwards, Gravel, Dodd, etc. "Clinton" received about 55 percent of the votes cast. Nobody believes that the vote represents a clear choice of Michigan Democrats for Clinton. If other names had been on the ballot, her vote would probably have been lower. According to the rules of the Democratic National Committee, the vote in Michigan shouldn't count.

Now Senator Clinton is insisting that it should count. She claims that she "won" Michigan and delegates chosen by the process in Michigan should be seated at the convention. To me, agreeing to ignore the vote in Michigan, then insisting that it be counted amounts to an example of underhanded gutter politics. More than one Democrat of my acquaintance is disgusted with Clinton.

The real reason for holding the primary elections early in the year, with several large States voting in February was to select the candidate early. The various Democratic elected officials favored Clinton early on and agreed to the early vote with the expectation that she would be able to gather enough delegates in February to clinch the nomination. It didn't work out that way. Upstart Obama came along and acquired a lot of delegates, too many to let Clinton claim the nomination after the February primary elections.

It's clear that the Democratic "machine" favored Clinton and probably still does. Democratic voters incline toward Obama. Clinton spent years working the "machine" and massaging the elected officials to grease the skids toward the nomination. She is one tough, determined lady and isn't going to give up the prize without an awful fight. She will do whatever it takes - reneging on promises and agreements, among other things - to gain the right to campaign against the Republican opponent in the fall.

All of this gutter politics may not dissuade dedicated Democrats like myself from voting for her if she does indeed become the Party's nominee. It will turn off some of the independent or non-partisan voters that we must depend on to win the general election next fall. Will enough of these independent voters support the presumably squeaky-clean and honest McCain rather than Hillary Clinton? This is a thought that I wish Hillary herself would consider and do some soul-searching about.

Labels: Barack Obama, Democratic elected officials, Hillary Clinton, Michigan

Some news pundits are dumping on Barack Obama for recent comments he has made about working-class people in small towns being “bitter.” Senator Obama, in common with Senators Clinton and McCain and, in fact, all the other ninety-seven senators, is a rich man. Does being rich and having a Harvard law degree disqualify him from being President? Mr. Obama was not born rich. He was raised by a single mother in straightened circumstances. By hard work, skill, intelligence, and good luck he was able to earn a law degree at Harvard University and go on to a successful career in Illnions politics and eventually become a United States Senator. In the process he has also amassed a personal fortune. That is to say, he is now a lot richer than I am.

Compared with Senators Clinton and McCain, it seems to me that Obama should have the best appreciation from his own life experience of what the “bitter” working-class folks in small towns are experiencing. He lived in poverty as a child. Neither Mrs. Clinton nor Mr. McCain can make that claim. Actually, they can, but no one will believe them.

Does a childhood of poverty or near poverty qualify one to be President? Presidents Lincoln, Truman, and Nixon come to mind. Lincoln and Truman are rightly revered. Nixon is scorned for his crimes, but he was in other respects a better than average President. He managed to extricate us from Viet Nam and he created an opening to the new Mao regime in China. He tried to establish a system of universal health care. On the other hand, he spawned a school of thought, championed by Vice-President Cheney, that the President is and ought to be free of legal restraints imposed by the Congress and the Constitution.

The charge of elitist applied to Obama implies that he is not electable, not that he wouldn’t be a good President. Candidates who appear to be “elite” turn off the ordinary working-class voter, or so it is said. I don’t think that charge can be proved true by history. My recollection of Presidents and Presidential candidates goes back as far as Herbert Hoover. I recall candidates Hoover (1932), Roosevelt, Landon (1936), Willkie (1940), Dewey (1944 and 1948), Truman (1948), Stevenson (1952 and 1956), Eisenhower, Kennedy, Nixon (1960 and 1968), Johnson, Goldwater (1964), Humphrey (1968), McGovern (1972), Ford, Carter, Reagan, Mondale (1984), Bush I, Dukakis (1988), Clinton, Dole (1996), Gore, Bush II, and Kerry. I’m not sure of which ones should be called “elitist” because I’m not sure what the word means. However, I’ll assume that it means that the person is, either in fact or by repute, a member of the “well-born and able” class rather than an ordinary person like you or me. By this definition I would classify Roosevelt, Willkie, Dewey, Stevenson, Kennedy, both Bushes, Gore, and Kerry as members of the “elite.” Out of the nine, four of these were elected to the Presidency. Eisenhower and Truman defeated “elite” candidates Dewey and Stevenson. Non-elite candidate Clinton defeated elite candidate Bush I. Bush II defeated Gore and Kerry. All three men belonged to the “elite” or “well-born and able” class. One can argue that Bush II has taken great pains to try to distance himself from the “elite” class into which he was born by adopting the speech mannerisms of poorly educated residents of western Texas. The fact remains that if he were not a member of the “elite” Bush family he would have gotten nowhere in politics.

So, there we have it. We’ve had Presidents who experienced poverty or near-poverty in childhood, Presidents of “ordinary” parents, and Presidents who were born rich. The best one in my lifetime was Roosevelt and the worst was the present Bush. Both men were born into wealthy households and had good educations. By my definition they were members of the elite. Presidents Truman, Ford, Nixon, and Clinton could all make the claim that they grew up in either poor or lower middle class households. They were “average Americans” and better than “average” Presidents. There seems to be no correlation between a President who is “just like the rest of us poor slobs” and the achievements and benefits of his term of office. Also, there seems to be no correlation between “electability” and membership or non-membership in the “elite” class.

Labels: Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Bob Dole, Bush Family, Elitism, Franklin Roosevelt, George McGovern, Harry Truman, Hillary Clinton, John McCain, wealth of Senators, working class voters

You've got to feel a lot of sympathy for Hillary Clinton. All her life she's been planning to become the first woman to be President of the United States. She married an ambitious and capable young man who became governor of a small State, then President. She spent eight years in the White House learning all the things that a President must do. She put up with a husband who was notoriously and publicly unfaithful. Then she succeeded in winning election to the Senate from a large and important State. Since then she has been assiduously courting influential Democrats all over the country to get their support for her presidential bid. She had it all wired. The skids were greased. All the observers and political junkies predicted that she would be the Democratic nominee for President in 2008.

And then this upstart two-year Senator from Illinois got in the way. He was going to be the first person of African descent to be President of the United States. Now he is running a bit ahead of her in delegate count. All the Democratic officials and other party functionaries who make up the "super" delegates are having second thoughts about supporting her. It's enough to drive a person insane. Stark raving mad insane!

Clearly she's angry. She's angry enough to make intemperate statements about her upstart rival. Recently she has disparaged his experience or knowledge of foreign affairs. That is, she says he has no such experience. She goes on to assert that she and Senator McCain are the two people in the race that do have the experience to deal with foreign affairs. That's a very damaging assertion and it may be the statement that loses the election for whichever Democrat wins the nomination. One of the strong arguments the Democrats have had until now is that McCain is temperamentally not to be trusted in dealing with foreign affairs. She has given that argument up in her increasingly desperate attempt to win the nomination from Senator Obama.

Until now I was willing and happy, even, to accept either Senator Obama or Senator Clinton as the Democratic nominee. I still believe that either of them would be a much better president than Senator McCain. I am no longer happy with the choice. I wish that Senator Clinton would just shut up and go away and I wish that the unwise statements she has uttered recently could somehow be undone if not forgotten completely. I'm afraid they can't be undone or forgotten. The Republicans will remember them and use them to advantage against whomever the Democrats nominate.

We Democrats seem to have a tendency to mouth off and shoot ourselves in the foot. We lose elections that we should win. We should have won the election of 1988 when President Reagan was termed out. Instead of waging a campaign of criticizing his policies, which were never very popular, our candidate made the assertion that nobody was prepared to believe that Democrats were "more competent" than Republicans. Today, of course, after seven years of Bush, that argument might sell. It didn't sell in 1988. In 2004 the Iraq war was already very unpopular. However, John Kerry blew the election when he said that he would still vote to threaten war on Iraq if the vote were held that year, assuming he knew only what he had known in 2001. John Edwards, on the contrary, said that he would not vote for the war and apologized for his vote for it in 2001. Incidentally, Senator Clinton is still having difficulty with her vote for the authority to go to war in 2001.

There hasn't been a year this favorable to a Democratic victory since 1932. Why do our political leaders have to blow it by talking too much? Why is Senator Clinton being such a poor sport that she attacks her Democratic rival in a way that gives the Republican opponent a big advantage?

Labels: Barack Obama, Elections of 1988 and 2004, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, John McCain

I've decided I don't like any of the leading contenders for the Presidency of this nation. I don't like McCain because he will appoint more federal judges like Alito, Scalia, and Thomas. We have too many conservative "federalist" judges now. I don't like Clinton or Obama because they won't be advocates for a universal health care plan that gets rid of the profit motive in deciding which medical procedures to pay for and which ones to deny. I also don't like them because recent polls indicate that neither of them can beat Senator McCain.

The only hope I see is that the Democrats will prevail in several Senatorial contests this coming November and get rid of several Republican obstacles to progress. Perhaps the country can tolerate President McCain if he has a Senate with fewer than 40 Republican supporters of his war and his judges. The Democrats may pick up a few House seats. However it's unlikely that they will pick up many because House districts have been gerrymandered to protect incumbents.

Another bit of cheerful news (I grasp at straws for this one) is that our Republican Governor here in California is now willing to talk about doing away with some tax loopholes to increase the State's revenue. I guess getting rid of a loophole doesn't count as increasing taxes, a phrase that Republicans choke on. Closing some loopholes, according to our governator, will raise an additional two billion dollars or so. The additional money can be used to reduce the proposed cut in the State's budget for schools.

Every little bit helps. I'm still a grouch this morning.

Labels: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Barack Obama, California budget, Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Universal health care

It has been written of President Franklin D. Roosevelt that he would first decide what he wanted to do or accomplish. Having decided that, he would then see how close he could come to accomplishing it. He was lauded for following the course of a realistic and practical politician.

There's another side to this approach to governing. If you can not achieve all of what you want to achieve, is it worth while working on something that achieves only a part of what you want? I apply this question to the health plans promoted by several Democratic and Republican politicians: Clinton, Schwarzenegger, Nunez, Romney, and others. These plans all amount to an effort to fix or improve our existing system of providing health care to Americans. Although the supporters of these plans are sincere in wanting to do something to improve a poorly functioning system, I think they are like applying band-aids to a severely injured individual who needs surgery to stop internal bleeding.

The essence of the Clinton-Schwarzenegger-Romney plan is to require all employers (of more than just a few employees) to provide subsidized health insurance for their employees. If an employer wishes, he can instead pay money to the State which will be used to subsidize health insurance to those individuals who are not covered by an employer. There are differences among them as to how much the non-insuring employers should pay, whether all persons are to be required to purchase insurance, and what coverage the insurers are required to provide. Basically, they are all attempts to make a system, originally designed by some employers to attract skilled and expensive workers, provide affordable health care for everyone. These plans are attempts to make a system which was never intended or designed to provide universal health care provide it.

In spite of my criticism, the C-S-R plan does amount to doing something. It won't provide universal health care. It may provide universal health insurance, which is not the same thing. Experience with private for-profit insurers shows that having insurance does not necessarily guarantee having adequate health and medical care. My question is, is it worth while doing?

One can argue that enacting a plan that provides good medical and health care to every American is not politically possible at present. Too many people will argue against it with arguments about "big government," bureaucratic control of medical decisions, inefficiency of government, and the like. I argue that, in spite of the difficulties, our political leaders should try for a universal health plan and not an almost universal insurance plan. The President should be committed to it and should use his press conferences and other unique opportunities to speak to the American People to explain why a universal health provider plan is better than any insurance plan. And that means that we need a President who is committed to the idea of universal health care. The candidates among the Democrats who are committed to this goal have been discarded by the primary voters. There is no hope, in this generation at least, that a Republican candidate would be so committed.

Perhaps, in the end, we will have to accept, for the time being, a half-measure or a band-aid. Winston Churchill once observed that the "American People will always to the right thing, but only after trying all the alternatives."

Labels: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Hillary Clinton, Massachusetts plan, Mitt Romney, univeral health insurance, Universal health care, Winston Churchill

The conventional news media and the bloggers are busy today writing about the New York Times article that deals with a relationship between John McCain and a female lobbyist a few years ago. The implication is that McCain was:

1. having an affair with the woman;
2. granting special favors to her clients;
3. risking his image as a squeaky clean legislator and not like the rest of the womanizing crooks that infest our national legislature.

Senator McCain has denied these implications with a simple response: "NO."

Some McCain partisans imply that the New York Times, a liberal newspaper, made up the story just to embarras McCain. They see a liberal plot to "swift boat" McCain.

The "swift boat" charge uses a poor analogy. John Kerry presented himself as having done something heroic during his service in Viet Nam. The swift boaters attacked and tried to disprove and discredit his claim as a war hero. The implication of the NYT story has no bearing of McCain's service during the Viet Nam war. A better analogy would be to liken the story to stories published during Bill Clinton's Presidency of his dalliances with various ladies.

My own reactions to the story are:

1. It probably is factually correct.
2. McCain is correct in denying an intimate sexual relationship with the woman.
3. Even if he had such a relationship, it has no bearing on his ability to handle the job of President. We have had many Presidents who had relations with women. These relationships did not detract from their abilities to lead this great country.

Regarding item 3, we must remember that it requires a person of extreme ambition and desire, as well as ability, to get as close to the Presidency as John McCain, Hillary Rodham Clinton, or Barack Obama. Persons with these extreme characteristics are apt to have very strong sexual desires as well. We should not be surprised or shocked or even put off by stories of sexual adventures by those with the ambition and ability to lead us. We should not put a President on a pedestal and worship him or her as a role model for our children. Next November we will elect a President, not a saint.

I defend and excuse John McCain for any affairs he may have had or may be having. I admire his short answers to the reporters who quizzed him about the implications of the story. I still won't vote for him. If he becomes President, he will almost certainly continue Mr. Bush's program of loading the federal courts with ultra-conservative judges and justices. If McCain becomes President, Roe v. Wade will be overturned after he appoints a successor to John Paul Stevens, the oldest member of the present Supreme Court.

Labels: Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, John McCain, John Paul Stevens, President as a role model, Supreme Court, swift boating, womanizing Presidents, Womanizing Senators and Representatives

I am a fan of John Edwards. I thought in 2004 that the Democrats would have done better to have had Edwards rather than Kerry at the head of the ticket. He was a better campaigner than Kerry and he had the correct answer to the question, "If you had known then what you know now, would you have voted in favor of the war resolution?" As you may recall, Kerry's answer to that question was "Yes." Edwards' answer was "No." As one who believes that Edwards would have beaten Bush in the election of 2004, I find it incomprehensible that he is not leading in the polls among Democrats. Instead, Democrats this year favor either a woman (Mrs. Clinton) or an African-American (Mr. Obama). Apparently the thinking is that any Democrat can win and the Party doesn't need the special qualities and talents of Mr. Edwards.

Why? In spite of what Ward Connerly thinks, we have a lot of racial prejudice to overcome or at least to live down. We have a lot of prejudice against women in high political office to get rid of. The average woman or African-American who has experienced prejudice and discrimination and still feels that he or she is experiencing it today looks at the possibility of a woman or an African-American as President as a powerful incentive for those individuals who make hiring decisions to see such a President as proof that his or her subconscious feelings that blacks or women should not be put in important jobs are not justified. It is this hidden, subconscious prejudice that still stands in the way of women or blacks receiving promotions that white men take for granted.

Hence, one can argue that electing a black President will do more than all the antidiscriminati0n legislation and all the affirmative action to get rid of this hidden, subconscious prejudice. The same applies to electing a woman to get rid of subconscious prejudice against women.

So, what is more important? Is it more important that the next President appoint "liberal" judges to the federal courts to restore some sort of balance to our system of justice or that the next President serve as an example of the wrongness of subcouscious prejudice? If you are a woman or a black man in a job situation where white men are routinely promoted and you are left behind, you probably value a promotion more than a liberal federal judicial appointment.

I will still vote for John Edwards. I want single-payer universal health coverage and liberal judicial appointments. I am retired and don't have to worry about whether I am going to be promoted next year. However, I suspect that the Democratic nominee will turn out to be either Senator Obama or Senator Clinton.

I won't even make a wild guess as to whom the Republicans will nominate.

Labels: Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, judicial appointments, single-payer, subconscious prejudice, Ward Connerly

It is said that many Democrats favor Senator Hillary Clinton over the other candidates for President because she is "strong." She is said to be stronger than Senator Obama. Nobody even compares her with the third most popular person in the race, former Senator John Edwards. (He's my favorite.) Her husband once said that the American public prefers a candidate who is strong but wrong to one who is right but weak, or perceived to be weak. Actually, it's the perception of strength or weakness that counts, not the real strength or weakness of the candidate. Senator Clinton has a manner of speaking and expressing herself that gives the public the perception that she is a strong person.

I ignore her personality and her manner of speaking. In thinking about positions she has taken, about her unwillingness to concede that her vote for the resolution that allowed the President to start a war with Iraq was a mistake, and in particular about her health care plan, I see her as a politician who is cautious and unwilling to take a position or support a proposal that she thinks would be unpopular with a significant part of the public. She knows, for example, that most Republicans still support the war and believe that it was the right thing to do. In her campaign for the Presidency, she hopes to get a few Republican votes. She knows that although most Democrats favor a single-payer plan to achieve universal health coverage most Republicans and many independent voters distrust a government-run health insurance plan. She also knows that the insurance industry is implacably opposed to any plan that will reduce the number of potential insurance purchasers.

She is not willing to take on and oppose publicly the insurance industry or the independent voters who still think that we should not leave our armed forces in Iraq to prevent a genocidal civil war. I do not think that this cautiousness indicates that she is a particularly strong person.

It comes down to something a friend once said to me. His name was Henry Whitelock and he called himself a conservative Democrat. I was appalled at some of the things that a particular political leader was saying. Henry agreed that they were appalling things, but he liked to hear them said. Senator Clinton has a manner of speaking that suggests great personal strength. People like to hear her speak in that manner. People perceive her to be strong. It doesn't matter that perhaps she is wrong about some of the issues.

Labels: Bill Clinton, health insurance industry, Hillary Clinton, Republican support of the Iraq war, single-payer, Strong and wrong

There was an article in the newspaper today about Senator Clinton's plan for universal health care, or universal health insurance. It struck me that the outline of the plan was similar to the plan that Governor Schwarzenegger has proposed for California. As I understand it, the Clinton plan has the following elements:

1. Persons who are satisfied with their present health insurance will be allowed to keep it. They will not be required to enroll in the new plan.
2. Everyone, including healthy young people, will be required to buy health insurance. Adding these health people to the existing insurance pools will make it possible for insurance companies to reduce their premiums to make health insurance more affordable.
3. A government-sponsored plan will be set up for people who don't like the existing choices of health insurance or who are unable to afford health insurance, either through poverty or through a preexisting medical condition.
4. Large companies that do not provide subsidized health insurance for their employees will be required to pay a fee or tax, whatever you call it.

I have mixed feelings about this plan. Of course, I recognize that the devil is in the details. Perhaps if I knew all the details, I would like it, or hate it. Now I have mixed feelings.

First, the plan keeps in place the private insurers. Insurance companies, with their bureaucracies dedicated to maximizing the profit for their companies by denying benefits are a major cause of the rapid increase in medical costs. Clinton does not do anything to rein in the insurance industry. Instead, she hopes to keep the industry quiet and not run "Harry and Louise" ads against it.

Second, I would like to know more about the government-sponsored insurance for those who can't or won't buy private insurance. Perhaps this feature can grow and eventually become a single-payer insurer. Perhaps it will wither because insurance companies will offer loss-leader policies to healthy individuals who are considering choosing the government plan. This is a feature that would cause me to support the plan if I believed that it would grow into a single-payer. If I believed it would wither, I would oppose the plan.

Third, to her credit, Senator Clinton is trying to craft a plan that has some chance of enactment at present - or after George Bush leaves office, for he will certainly veto any form of universal health insurance that has a government component.

At any rate, I'll have to wait for more details before I decide whether to support or oppose it. (Not that my position will have any effect)

Labels: Hillary Clinton, insurance bureaucracy, single-payer, Universal health care

Bruce Fein, who was an assistant Attorney General in the Reagan administration and who drew up some of the articles of impeachment against Bill Clinton, has stated his reasons for having impeachment hearings in the House of Representatives against George Bush. Mr. Fein clearly loves the constitution and his reason for impeaching George Bush is that Mr. Bush has established several dangerous precedents. These precedents must be destroyed lest future Presidents use them. The way to destroy the precedents is to hold impeachment hearings based on these precedents. It must be made clear to all future Presidents that these acts were and are illegal under the constitution and that the current President must be impeached for committing them.

Our constitution is more than the mere 25,000 or so words in the document. It is also a long series of court cases which establish precedents in law, and a long series of Presidential acts that have not been challenged by either Congress or the courts. I can think of two or three important precedents:

Marbury vs. Madison: This case established the power of the federal courts to void acts of Congress and the President as being unconstitutional.

Tyler's Ascendance to the Presidency: The constitution did not stipulate that when a President left office in mid-term (e.g., through death or impeachment) that the Vice President then became President. It stipulated only that the duties of the President would be carried out by the Vice President. The unstated implication was that Congress would by law establish a means of choosing a new President, such as by special election. After the death of President Harrison in 1841, Vice President John Tyler insisted on being sworn in as President, thus establishing the precedent that the Vice President actually becomes President when the President dies, is disabled, or otherwise can not act as President.

Roosevelt and the Navy’s Tour: President Theodore Roosevelt decided to show the world that the United States wielded a big stick by sending the Navy on a tour around the world. At the time there was money appropriated by Congress sufficient only to allow the Navy to steam half way around. Roosevelt sent the Navy off anyway, arguing that if Congress wanted to leave the Navy on the other side of the world it could do so. Of course, Congress had to appropriate the additional money to enable the Navy to complete the tour. The President established the precedent that even the Congressional power of the purse does not prevent the Commander in Chief from doing what he pleases with the armed forces.

President Bush has established, or has tried to establish these and other precedents:

1. The power to prevent members of executive departments from testifying before Congress;
   
2. The power to listen to telephone conversations between Americans without warrants;
   
3. The power to designate persons, even American citizens, as enemy combatants and to hold them in prison indefinitely without habeas corpus or a fair trial;
   
4. The power to weaken or change the intent of a law by issuing a signing statement at the time he signs the bill into law in which he expresses his understanding of the law and his intent about enforcing it.

Mr. Fein argues that Congress must act now, during Mr. Bush’s term of office, to void these precedents. A way to void them is to impeach the President and the Vice President for doing these things. If nothing is done during Bush’s remaining term, the next President, whoever he or she may be, will be able to exercise these powers and will claim that the President has the implicit authority as Commander in Chief to do so, following the custom of his or her predecessors. Mr. Fein wonders whether Republicans want a future president Hillary Clinton to have the powers that Mr. Bush has illegally claimed for himself. If not, they should urge the impeachment of the President now.

Labels: bad precedents, Bruce Fein, dangerous precedents, George Bush, Hillary Clinton, impeachment, James Madison, Theodore Roosevelt